Maria Jose is a veterinarian from Chile and a third-year PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, dedicated to understanding the impacts of human-mediated landscape changes on wildlife health and zoonotic disease risk. Her current research focuses on investigating virus communities and infection dynamics within wild rodent populations in restored temperate forests in Scotland. Currently, as part of a placement with the IUCN, she is developing guidelines to incorporate One Health into restoration policy and practice to reduce zoonotic and vector-borne risks.

She holds a Master’s in Conservation Science from the University of Queensland, Australia, where she used large global datasets to align conservation planning with One Health objectives. She has been involved in research focused on wildlife health, zoonotic diseases, and environmental change both in Chile and internationally. As part of this work, she has gained extensive field experience sampling wild animal populations and collecting ecological data. Complementing her research, Maria Jose’s veterinary background includes internships with international NGOs, such as the Wildlife Conservation Society, as well as clinical training at wildlife rescue centers in Australia and the United States.